I know this might be quite controversial as our friends seem to have very divided opinions about what we are planning to do with our DS, who is going to be three this November. I would really like your opinions and recommendation/advice as we are struggling a bit here!
In a nutshell - we plan to send our son to live with his grandparents abroad (without mum and dad) for a year so that he can learn to speak the language.
Here is the context:
My son is 2.5 yo, he is half Chinese (from my side). For the first two years of his life we had a mixture of two languages constantly in the house (Chinese and English) because my mother was in the UK at the time and she spoke the language to him a lot. My son understands simple Chinese but never speaks it. Then my mum left the UK and I had a new newborn. For the next 7 months I have mostly been with the baby, DH has been mostly with my son, so no one constantly speak Chinese to him. I tried to communicate to him in that language but with a newborn the progress is very limited. DH doesn't speak Chinese. My son had since improved MASSIVELY with his English - for a 2.5 yo his vocabulary is rather large! He has done very well at the nursery and potty training overall, however he is losing his Chinese language skills rapidly. In an attempt to revive that language skill and to teach him about his roots, we decide to have my mum coming to the UK to spend a few months with us, and then we'd travel together to China (dad not coming because of work) to stay for a month before I fly back to the UK, leaving him with my grandparents for about a year. He will be going to a good nursery in Beijing and will have grandparents at home (both grandparents are very happy to accommodate and spend time with my son).
Now we are in the first stage of our plan (my mum coming to the UK to spend time with us). The problem is that my son is refusing to spend a lot time with his grandmother and that there is a communication breakdown since they speak different languages right now (those seven months made such a difference!) He is very strong willed and had since had some of the most EXTREME tantrums, which almost made us question our decision - will it be psychological damaging to him to go through this? But everything we try to do is to encourage him to learn (how do we communicate this idea to a 2.5 yo?) it somehow has backfired so far ! We are not throwing him in at the deep end - we are not just sending him to a foreign land and say byebye - we have planned a six months long transition period and everyone is on board and yet - it has been so frustrating and emotionally draining there is almost no progress. I don't understand why this is so hard, I also feel that he is smart enough to know what's going on but rather just refuse to listen with very bad behaviour.
What's your views and opinions on this? Is it a ridiculous idea? Have we done something fundamentally wrong?